It was as though she had heard some distant call which she but half understood and, only partly understanding, feared. CHAPTER XVI DREAM-FLOWERS The news of Mrs. Hilyard's visit to the Cottage soon spread abroad, and the following day, when she was allowed downstairs for the first time, Ann held quite a small reception. Lady Susan, escorted by Forrester and the ubiquitous Tribes of Israel, was the first to arrive. Afterwards came the rector and Miss Caroline, and even Mrs. Carberry, a somewhat consequential dame whose husband was Master of the Heronsfoot Foxhounds, and who had hitherto held rather aloof from anything approaching intimacy and merely paid a stately first call on the Cottage people, unbent sufficiently to take tea informally with the invalid. She did not, however, bring her daughter, a girl of Ann's own age, with her. A shrewd, rather calculating woman, she had fully recognised the possible attraction that might lie in Robin's steady, grey-green eyes. And since her plans for her daughter's future most certainly did not include marriage with any one so unimportant--and probably hard up--as a young estate agent, she judged it wiser to run no risks. She extracted from Ann a full, true, and particular account of her bathing adventure, and the information that it had been the owner of Heronsmere who had come to the rescue did not appear to afford her much pleasure. "He's not here this afternoon?" She glanced quickly round the party of friends who had gathered in the pretty, low-ceiled room. "But I suppose he has called already to make sure that you're safe and sound?" There was a kind of acrid sweetness in her tones. "Oh, no," replied Ann, sensing the woman's latent antagonism. "Why should he?" "Why, indeed?" Mrs. Carberry laughed dryly. "After all, he can't really feel very grateful to you for procuring him a soaking, can he? A man does so hate to be made a fool of." "I really don't know what he felt," retorted Ann sweetly, but with heightened colour. "You see, I was unconscious." "Just as well for you, perhaps." Again that unpleasant little dry laugh. "One feels so _draggled_, doesn't one, with one's hair all lank and wet?" Miss Caroline's maidenly mind seemed chiefly oppressed with the immodesty of being rescued from drowning by a member of the other sex. "How unfortunate it was that Mrs. Hilyard couldn't reach you!" she said, when she got Ann to herself for a few moments. "You must have felt very uncomfortable." "Uncomfortable?" Ann's clear eyes met Miss Caroline's blue bead ones inquiringly. "_Dreadfully_ uncomfortable, I should think"--with sympathy. "You--you had nothing on, I suppose"--lowering her voice impressively--"but your bathing-gown?" "Nothing at all," answered Ann, maintaining her gravity with difficulty. "One hasn't usually, you know--to go into the water." "But you had to be carried _out_ of the water, hadn't you? You must have found it most embarrassing! Most embarrassing!"